


The (Best, Most Brilliant) Time-Travelling Pest Control Team

by latamire



Category: Cabin Pressure, Doctor Who
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-24
Updated: 2012-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-16 23:23:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/latamire/pseuds/latamire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur Shappey becomes the Pope. Also, dragons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In The Beginning (that happened after the ending)

It’s all Mum’s fault.  
Well, not ALL Mum’s fault. Mosquitoes, and those bits that float around in orange juice and get stuck in your teeth, those things aren’t Mum’s fault.  
But me, Arthur Shappey, travelling through time in a police box that’s bigger on the inside and BRILLIANT, fighting REAL, ACTUAL DRAGONS, and becoming Pope, yeah, that part is all Mum’s fault.  
It all started when we were at Heathrow and we had to wait a looooooooooong time at the airport because there was another aeroplane where ours was supposed to be so we couldn’t get any passengers, but we didn’t have permission to take off because we didn’t have the passengers we needed (they probably would have been really annoyed if we left without them) and it was REALLY BORING, and Mum was getting tired of me being on the aeroplane and also talking and also being me, so she told me to go find something else to do outside.  
So I went, and I looked outside. It did not look very exciting, to be quite honest. Still, I went down the stairs, and I went to the outside, and I walked around Gerti, and I walked around Gerti again, and I walked around Gerti another time, only the other way. Then I went into the airport and looked around the shops. It was Heathrow, so there was some brilliant stuff, but it wasn’t that brilliant overall. But then I saw something extra brilliant-looking and I said to myself, “Arthur, that police box over there, that looks like fun.”  
“Yes, Arthur,” I said to myself, “it does look like fun. Haven’t seen one of THOSE in a long time.”  
“Well, Arthur, why don’t you go have a look at it?”  
“I think I will, Arthur.”  
So I went over and looked at the police box, and it was brilliant, but I couldn’t get inside because the doors were probably locked. I went back into the airport again and got a Toblerone, because there were lots of duty free shops with Toblerones of all kinds. I went back to the plane, but Mum was arguing with the people in the tower about when we were going to take off, and it sounded like we weren’t going to be taking off for a long time, so I went over to the police box and sat down in front of it and ate my Toblerone.  
I was just getting to the last pyramid of chocolate when SUDDENLY! The door opened and knocked me over, and I dropped the Toblerone. But it was okay, because a man came out of the police box. He was very tall and very odd and BRILLIANT and he wore a bow tie and I decided we should be friends.  
“Oh! I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you drop your Toblerone.”  
I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just said “Hello!”  
The brilliant man looked at me. “Hello!” he said.  
“I’m Arthur.”  
“Well, Arthur, I’m The Doctor.”  
“Brilliant!” I said, because it was BRILLIANT. “I like your police box.”  
“I’m glad.”  
I looked around him to see inside. IT WAS GIGANTIC. IT WAS HUGE. IT WAS LIKE AN ENTIRE GIGANTIC BUILDING STUFFED INSIDE A BRILLIANT LITTLE POLICE BOX. “Wow! It’s giant! It’s bigger on the inside than on the outside! How?”  
“Because, Arthur, I’m a Time Lord.”  
I didn’t know what to say again, because I didn’t know then what a Time Lord was, so I just said “What”.  
“I’m from a planet called Gallifrey, and my job is to travel through time preventing bad things from happening in this police box, which is actually called a TARDIS, and it isn’t REALLY a police box, it just looks like one because it got stuck as one.”  
“You travel through TIME? Wow, that’s... that’s... that’s... THE MOST BRILLIANT THING EVER! Even more brilliant than tossing an apple or playing charades or Yellow Car! Oh, I want to travel through time in a police box! I want it more than anything! More than anything ever! Can I come?”  
“Of course you can come. I’ll always welcome people who want to go travelling through time and space with me. Is there anything you especially want to see?”  
“I want to see EVERYTHING. I want to see DINOSAURS, and KNIGHTS, and YELLOW CARS, and... and... EVERYTHING!”  
“I think we can do that,” said The Doctor, and we went into the police box.  
Inside, it was even bigger than I thought! It was like a whole BUNCH of buildings inside a little police box. I wanted to go EVERYWHERE, but before I could, we were already where we were going, which was BRILLIANT. When I got back to today, I thought, which wasn't actually today, but was instead another time, I was going to have to tell everyone I knew about this tiny police box that wasn't nearly as tiny on the inside that travelled in time and not even as boringly as normal time, but instead TERRIFICALLY FAST and WOW! Faster even than the fastest planes, probably, and there are some REALLY FAST PLANES. I’d never been on anything that fast! It didn’t even feel very fast, but that’s the way planes work too, you go places really fast but it doesn’t really feel that fast. If you could feel like you were going that fast, it would be BRILLIANT and really exciting, I think. The Doctor opened up the door and I ran out, and there was a room, and we were in it and so were a lot of people and suddenly they were really surprised, and then they got really excited and talked a lot amongst themselves and I went over and petted a brilliant fuzzy robe for a while (it had fur on it and it was really brilliant) and then I went to sleep I think, and THEN THEY HAD A BRILLIANT BANQUET and then they made me the Pope and that's how that happened.


	2. On The Second Day, God Created Dragons And Toblerone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur Shappey is okay with being the figurehead for the entire Catholic world.

Let me be clear.  
Arthur has no idea how to explain anything.  
ANYTHING. AT ALL.  
He cannot relate his way out of a paper bag. He does not know how to tell a good story from the recipe for toast (which he apparently, by some fluke of nature, does not actually know). One would be better off relying on a Dalek for important information, which I don’t like doing, but Arthur would probably make me desperate enough to do it.  
That being said, he is the best companion I have ever had.  
For adventure purposes, anyway. This man has the attention span of a hyperactive goldfish. Or a squirrel. Something that has no attention span at all. He will wander away at the drop of a hat. This being the Vatican, there are a lot of (REALLY COOL) hats to drop. (I stole seven hats. I know, it's the Vatican, but they were REALLY COOL HATS.)  
When we arrived at the Vatican, I knew something was different. It's like having one small change that influences everything, like if the sun was green. The sun wasn't green, though. It was just something a bit off. I do not know why it was the Vatican where we ended up, but we landed in the Vatican, during the Renaissance, right in the middle of a private meeting, which is Not A Thing You Interrupt With Your Time Machine Landing In The Middle Of The Room, but seeing as we just magically appeared out of nowhere they went with “DIVINE INTERVENTION” and left it at that.  
As it turns out, there was a bit of a problem that explained why it felt like there was something a bit different about this Vatican.  
There were dragons.  
Upon hearing this, I asked that they backtrack a bit, because they just casually mentioned it, like “Okay, we have the problem with our trade routes sorted. Item 26: Has anyone done anything or thought about what to do with the dragons roaming around devouring people and stealing things and causing generally massive detriment?”  
Arthur wasn’t paying attention (he was too busy petting the Pope’s winter cloak, which was on display at the other end of the room) but I asked them to please explain what they meant by “dragons roaming around”.  
“A few months ago, there was an immense bang and a flash of light and we thought it was God, but, no, dragons.”  
“Could you maybe... explain a bit further?”  
“The dragons came through a hole in the sky, and they began destroying things as soon as they came through. They will kill anyone they want, and we have come to advise everyone not to go out at night, or alone, or more than necessary. Even that does not help, because these dragons like destroying things, and they are dragons, so they set things on fire, and we have lost a great many citizens and a great deal of money. The people are unhappy. Even papal influence is lost on dragons.”  
“We must take pre-emptive measures! The dragons must be stopped through some means,” I said. “Otherwise, they will simply continue to terrorize the city, and when they are finished here, they will probably go elsewhere, and perhaps they will bring other dragons with them. How many dragons are here?”  
“We believe there are three dragons. They live in and destroy different areas of the city. Most of what they do, though, if they are not willfully destroying our infrastructure, is digging. Thankfully, though, the dragons sleep a great deal. Sometimes they are all asleep, and we have a few hours of peace before the terror begins once more.”  
“Then something must be done against them!”  
“What can we do against dragons?”  
“What do the dragons want?”  
“They set fire to my house, you know! They have killed my servants, ruined my furniture AND DESTROYED MY ROSEBUSHES!”  
Thus began a long, heated, shouty conversation. As it turned out, there currently was no Pope, being that the last one had recently died, and they still hadn’t voted on a new one. Since there was no Pope, nobody could decide on what to do- make peace with the dragons (bad idea), pit the Swiss guards against the dragons (entertaining but similarly bad idea), or build a giant pit and put the dragons in that (there is nothing about that that isn’t a bad idea). I knew there wasn’t going to be a decision, at least unless there was a Pope, and as I looked around the room, I saw the next Pope.  
The next Pope, whose name was Arthur, who was at that moment asleep on the papal throne, using some of the papal regalia as a blanket.  
Well, at least he wasn’t intimidated by it.  
If Arthur was the Pope, he could reassure people, we could reach a decision, and I had time to figure out what was going on so I could move forward something that could actually work as an idea.  
“You see that man over there?” I asked, pointing at Arthur. Seventy pairs of eyes tracked over to where he was curled up on the chair wrapped in the Pope’s priceless ermine and velvet cloak. “He is brilliant at deciding things, especially when it comes to dragons, and if you make him Pope-”  
A shockingly massive roar of approval.  
See, several things had culminated for this to happen.  
Firstly, given our mysterious appearance, everyone in the room thought we had been sent by God. They were going with everything I said, anyway, better than I could have ever hoped. (These things usually don’t go that well right off the bat.)  
Secondly, stemming from that, they assumed that I was the less important of Arthur and I, because I was being sent to deal with the boring things and Arthur was using fabulous robes of state as bedding, which, again, they didn’t fight.  
Thirdly, the dragons had made everyone so incredibly desperate that for a few days they had considered taking an elephant (it could count) and making it Pope, just to have SOMETHING, ANYTHING AT ALL to make decisions for them.  
I hauled Arthur before the group, and hearing Arthur talk about how brilliant dragons were didn’t change their minds, so we had a banquet, and they were STILL okay with having Arthur as Pope, and so the next day, Arthur Shappey, the steward of the aeroplane, was made Pope Arthur I.  
Stranger things have happened.


	3. A Brief Interlude, In Which The Fourth Wall Is Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur isn't the best storyteller. Someone has to intervene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Four on Wednesday, but here's a brief and very silly thing to tide you over.

So anyway, I was Pope, and then we went and fought some dragons.  
(Arthur, if that’s how you’re going to tell this story...)  
What? You made all the decisions and things. All I did was be Pope and fight dragons.  
(And marvellous you were too, but that isn’t how you relate things in an entertaining way.)  
Oh, I think being Pope and fighting dragons is entertaining.  
(That is, in fact, what’s drawing people into this story. You’re right. But they need a few more details.)  
Oh.  
So I really liked the fuzzy robe, but they made me wear the boring robe because it wasn’t winter.  
(Good details.)  
And then I fought dragons.  
(I think I’ll take it from here.)


	4. This Is Probably Why We Can't Have Nice Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pope Arthur Shappey the First must send out his faithful envoy, the Doctor, in order to figure out how to fight the dragons eating Rome.

Where were we? Ah, yes. Arthur Shappey is the Pope and Rome is being ravaged by dragons. That’s as good a place to pick up as any.  
Arthur made me Vicar General of Rome. The Vicar General does not usually get a hat, so I got Arthur to change the rules so that the Vicar wears an enormous hat as a part of the ecclesiastical raiments. He was all too happy to do so as he, as much as I, has a fondness for hats. (Reader, I stole that enormous hat.)  
Our first order of business was to stop people panicking over the dragons. Obviously, because they’re dragons, people aren’t exactly made calm by them. Arthur encouraged the people of Rome to leave, unless they wanted to be eaten by dragons, “but really, if you do want to be eaten by dragons, we have three, and they are willing to eat you”. Arthur was really having a good time as Pope, because everyone listened to everything he said, and he got to wear fun outfits and talk to people. He informed me that he took “a course on understanding people” which made it “loads easier”. I was beginning to think this course on understanding people ought to be required for being Pope. Pope Arthur was quite the popular fellow.  
However (and I knew this was going to come up), he asked me why we were HERE, why we were in Renaissance Italy with dragons.  
“Well, Your Holiness,” I began, “you know how I told you that we got here in a TARDIS?”  
“Right!”  
“TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. And it’s really, really very relative.”  
“It stands for all that?”  
“I’m sorry?”  
“How can three letters stand for all of that?”  
“Three letters?”  
“And they don’t stand for anything, I thought?”  
“Your Holiness, what are you talking about?”  
“Well, our aeroplane, Gerti, it’s really just called Golf Tango India, we call it Gerti because that’s better than Golf Tango India. Golf Tango India doesn’t mean anything, it’s just what it’s called... wait. I don’t know what... never mind.”  
“OH. Okay. No, the TARDIS is a vehicle CALLED Time And Relative Dimension In Space. It’s just called a TARDIS because saying Time And Relative Dimension In Space over and over again like I’ve been doing takes up a lot of time.”  
“So what does the tower call it?”  
“What does the what why?”  
“Well, you were at the airport, on the runway, in a TARDIS, which travels through space, so does the tower call it... what’s T again?”  
“No, no, no, I didn’t call the tower. I was at the airport because I heard that there was a plane full of dead people and that is definitely a thing that should not be happening, but it was just some people being strange.”  
“Oh. Well. That is very strange.”  
“I know. We just ended up here because the TARDIS put us here, in this universe parallel to yours, to deal with the dragons. And so deal with the dragons we shall.”  
We both looked out the window. At this moment our view was faraway plumes of smoke and dust from where one of the dragons was dismantling an eleventh century building.  
“Okay. Is this what happens every time you travel through time?”  
“You are the first person I’ve travelled with to be made Pope, if that’s what you’re asking.”  
“Brilliant!”  
I left the Pope to contemplate whatever it is he was contemplating, and headed off to figure out what was happening with the dragons. I moved the TARDIS to a quiet side street outside the Vatican and changed out of my formal pope-attending garments (and, regrettably, the hat) and went investigating.  
The dragons’ paths of destruction had started at the Esquiline, so I headed east. People were running south, so I assumed that the dragons were to the north. At the Esquiline, I noticed a great deal of residual energy, likely from the dragons’ entry into the atmosphere. I didn’t want to open that back up, but I had to get some information about it.  
The dragons hadn’t come from Earth, that was really obvious. They were dragons, and Earth can’t breed that sort of thing. I needed to get a closer look at them, to figure out from whence they came.  
I found one of the dragons asleep within the smoldering ruins of a building it had just destroyed. It had taken out the front wall, the roof and most of the two side walls, but left the back wall mostly intact. This dragon looked to be about 500 feet long, but not especially tall, and most of the length was made up by its tail. I walked around the block to try to see a bit more, but its strategic destruction of the building prevented easy viewing.  
I didn’t recognise anything about the dragon in front of me, but some analysis would help. I returned to the TARDIS, turned off anything that could ever possibly make a sound when I landed, and moved.  
What I did not know when I moved, that would have probably been really, really, REALLY good to know, was that this dragon had also moved, slightly, and its tail was now out in front of it, running into the street.  
Of all the places I could have landed, I happened to land on the end of the dragon’s tail.  
Here’s the thing about the TARDIS. It’s not a light vehicle. It’s bigger on the inside, which translates to it being remarkably heavy. Heavier than could ever normally be possible for its size. And again, I landed on the tail of the thing I was trying to avoid waking.  
The operative word there is trying. It nearly set my hair on fire when I opened the door. Then it blocked my ability to get back in by curling around the TARDIS to try to crush it, spitting acid at me the whole time. I backed away from the acid, thinking the whole time about how I could distract it, so that it would stop trying to destroy the only thing that could get me out. I managed to formulate a plan.  
That plan was RUN.  
I hoped the dragon would chase me, and I could run around the other side of the block, get in the TARDIS and get out of the dragon’s sight, but as I rounded the corner back to the front of the building, I realised that the dragon hadn’t moved. This was a smart dragon. It had only moved to turn its head to look the other direction, so that it was again looking directly at me.  
Fire came shooting after me as I ran around the block again, hoping that the dragon would chase me (because the first time wasn’t indicative of anything?) but it instead knew exactly where I would come out and stared me down as I entered its view again.  
After several attempts to get the dragon to follow me (I even ran to a butcher and tried to lure it around the block with a live chicken) I decided that I needed a new plan of action.  
I sat against a building on the other side of the block with my chicken, waiting for the dragon to go to sleep or get bored or somehow stop paying attention to the TARDIS. It wasn’t going to crush it, but it very well could eat it, or coil around it so much that I couldn’t get in at all.  
I had been sitting with my chicken for about an hour when I heard something drip on the ground next to me. I looked at the drop of acid dissolving the stone, then looked up at the dragon peering over the roof directly over my head, then grabbed my chicken and ran for the other side of the block. There was a foot and a half of space between the top of the TARDIS door and the top of the dragon’s tail, so I vaulted over the tail, pushed the door open, slid inside, and returned to the Vatican.  
I had my information. Now to figure out what to do with it.


	5. The Doctor Steals Some More Hats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being opaque with the College of Cardinals while dragons are attacking the Vatican is probably a bad idea.

The Doctor told me that if I wanted to tell this story, I would have to take a course on Being Understood, so I can tell this story now, and it will be brilliant.  
The Doctor went off to fight one of the dragons for a while, and the way he told the story, it was really brilliant. I wish I could have gone. He brought me a chicken, though. It was a really nice chicken, and it was really well-behaved, and I had a chair made so when I was on my Pope chair it would sit next to me in a tiny Pope chair of its own. It was one of my advisors.  
I called a meeting of the important people so that we could figure out what to do about the dragons because the Doctor had found out some things about them. He wouldn’t tell ANYONE, though, which was NOT BRILLIANT. We needed to get the dragon stuff under control, even though dragons are BRILLIANT (more brilliant than HE WAS BEING) and if they weren’t ruining everything it would have been even more brilliant, but they were, so because I was Pope I “had to do something”.  
The important people meeting was really brilliant, because I told them all to wear the most brilliant hats they owned. Some people had really fantastic hats. The Doctor had a REALLY brilliant hat. It was a knitted hat. It was really cool. I decided I shouldn’t be so mad, because he was brilliant and he was also brilliant meaning he was really smart, like Mum or Douglas or sometimes Skip, and he would help us get rid of the dragons in the most brilliant way possible.  
Everyone was really anxious to hear what the Doctor was going to say we should do about the dragons. Lots of them had had their houses destroyed. The head bank man said that we were losing so much money that we wouldn’t be able to support ourselves any more. So when everyone was there and we had started the meeting, I said, “Consigliere,” (which is what I called the Doctor because it was a fun word,) “what have you found out about the dragons?”  
“Unfortunately,” he said, and I knew that what was going to come next was not going to be brilliant, “I can’t tell you.”  
All the important people in the room suddenly got very angry and started throwing their brilliant hats at the Doctor.  
“You must tell us! It might mean the difference between life and death!”  
“What is it that you do not say?”  
“Are you in league with the dragons, young man?”  
“No! No, I’m not in league with the dragons,” shouted the Doctor in between getting hit by hats. “It’s just really secret spoilery information.”  
This sounded much more brilliant than it had at first, so I ordered everyone to stop throwing hats. They all started grumbling because they had to go find their hats. I told them not now (the Doctor was looking weirdly at some of the hats) and that they all had to go out of the room, because secret spoilery information was only for the Pope.  
“Why keep such plans from us? What are you hiding?”  
“I still say you control the dragons! Are you a demon? ARE YOU BOTH DEMONS? WE HAVE A DEMON AS THE POPE! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!”  
“No! They can’t be demons!”  
“THE DRAGONS ARE THE WRATH OF GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!”  
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”  
The meeting turned crazy then, and the Doctor said “I’d suggest we leave, and let them sort this out amongst themselves,” so we left.  
Out in the hallway, he told me why he couldn’t tell everyone. He suspected that one of the bishops was secretly controlling the dragons, or wanted to control the dragons, and if he said what he knew, the dragons and the future of humans would be in danger.  
“They have a plan to go home,” he said, “and they need to destroy Rome to get there unless I figure out how to get them out, so I have to fix the...” He wandered off mumbling things. I went back to the meeting and told everyone to be quiet.  
“We should think about what the dragons want and give them options. We can try to be friends with them. I took a course on understanding people and that’s what they said.”  
All the important people started clapping, which was brilliant. But then someone said “Your Holiness, making peace with dragons is not our policy. We must consider that what the dragons want is sheer, wanton destruction.”  
People started agreeing with him, and I didn’t know what to do. “But I’m Pope,” I said.  
“You are, and thus we present you with the option of having the dragons killed or letting the dragons kill us.”  
“Would the dragons really kill us?”  
Everyone in the room nodded at once.  
“I have to ask the Consigliere.”  
They all stared at me as I left the room, and I ran all around my palace trying to find the Doctor. He was doing something with a torch, I think. It wasn’t a very powerful torch, and whatever it was didn’t need lighting up. It looked brilliant, though.  
“They want to kill the dragons!” I said.  
“They can’t kill the dragons. The dragons are too important.”  
“We have to do something!”  
“I know we have to do something. You’ll have to give me some time, but I think I can fix this. Because not only are these dragons important,” he said, “dragons are really cool.”


	6. If There Had Been A Massive Pie Fight Anywhere, This Chapter Is Probably The One It Would Be In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Secret tunnels and not being eaten by dragons are two of the Doctor's absolute favorite things.

Me again.  
It was a dark and stormy night. I was doing Pope things when someone came running into the room and shouted “THE DRAGONS ARE COMING HERE!”  
“The dragons? Here? Now?”  
“THE DRAGONS ARE COMING HERE AND THEY’RE GOING TO KILL US ALL BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T LET US KILL THEM AND NOW THEY’RE GOING TO CALL YOU POPE DRAGON... LIKER... GUY BECAUSE THE DRAGONS ARE GOING TO KILL EVERYONE EVER!”  
“Have this apple and toss it from hand to hand and you’ll feel better. Now go away. I need to do magic Pope things.”  
“You’re the Pope, not a wizard,” said the person, but he went away with my apple.  
I looked out the window, and I saw the dragons. They were coming. The person was right. And now he had my apple. I went out to find the Doctor.  
He was walking really fast back and forth in a hallway talking to himself, and when I walked up he said “Ah! Arthur! Do you happen to know anything about nuclear physics?”  
“No, Douglas might, but Douglas is in the future. Douglas knows EVERYTHING.”  
“Unfortunately, Arthur, we can’t go back to the future now. They need us. They need YOU, Arthur. You can help them. They like you. They see in you someone they can trust, no matter what they say about us being demons. And right now, with the dragons attacking, they need someone like you more than ever.”  
As soon as he said that, A FIREBALL WENT TEARING THROUGH THE WALL RIGHT NEXT TO US HOLY COW I SCREAMED AND RAN AWAY. The Doctor ran after me, and we hid in a stairwell to figure out what to do (well, the Doctor figured out what to do and I wished I had my apple back).  
“But the dragons are HERE,” I said.  
“Yeah, I gathered that,” said the Doctor, and he started digging through his pockets. “We have to do something, or they’ll burn this place-”  
Some flaming ceiling and lots of other fire fell down between our stairs and the stairs on the other side of the stairwell.  
“...down.”  
“Wait! They told me about a brilliant secret tunnel that should help us stay safe!”  
“Brilliant! I love secret tunnels! And not being eaten by dragons!”   
We ran down the stairs. I pulled aside a tapestry and there was a SECRET TUNNEL behind it and we ran down that until we were completely in the dark except for the Doctor’s torch which was green and very bright.  
“Your bishops are going to want to kill the dragons, and they aren’t going to know how to do it, so they’re going to want me. I think I know what to do, and it definitely ISN’T killing the dragons. We need to hold a meeting and prevent them from killing the dragons or changing the course of history too much.”  
“Brilliant,” I said.  
We ran around rounding up important counsellor people and my chicken and held a meeting in the secret tunnel.  
“Two dragons are attacking the Palace,” said the Doctor. “They never work in pairs. This is different. We need to figure out what’s going-”  
“WE NEED TO KILL THEM, THAT’S WHAT.”  
“We can’t kill them, but I agree, they can’t stay-.”  
“WE CAN KILL THEM, ALL RIGHT!”  
“VENGEANCE FOR MY ROSEBUSHES!”  
“I exorcize you, impure spirit...”  
“I will do it! I will take the ring to...”  
“SHUT UP I’M THE POPE!”  
Everyone shut up because I was the Pope.  
“We can’t just argue about things! I don’t want to die in a secret tunnel under Renaissance Italy!”  
“SO WE MUST KILL THE DRAGONS!”  
“YAAAAAAAAAAAY!”  
“No, we can’t kill the dragons!” I shouted. “The Consigliere says we can’t do it!”  
“THE CONSIGLIERE IS A DEMONNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”  
“The Consigliere is not a demon! WE ARE NOT HAVING THIS ARGUMENT!”  
“WE’LL HAVE THIS ARGUMENT AND WE’LL HAVE IT NOW!”  
“NO WE WON’T, I’M SURE THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS WE COULD BE DISCUSSING THAT AREN’T WHETHER OR NOT THE CONSIGLIERE IS A DEMON, LIKE THERE ARE DRAGONS THAT WANT TO EAT MY HOUSE AND MY CHICKEN AND ME ALONG WITH THEM AND KILLING THEM IS NOT AN OPTION!”  
“TELL US WHY IT’S NOT AN OPTION THEN! WE’RE YOUR ADVISORS AND WE HAVE TO KNOW WHY WE CAN’T DO THINGS!”  
“I didn’t want to have tell them this now,” said the Doctor quietly to me, “but-”  
At that moment A DRAGON RIPPED THROUGH THE CEILING OF THE TUNNEL AND EVERYONE STARTED SCREAMING AND RUNNING BACK TO THE PALACE BECAUSE THE DRAGONS HAD COME FOR US. I ran back to the palace, and it was still not completely eaten by dragons. We all went to the audience chamber, where everyone just sort of milled about. They seemed to be talking about something all amongst themselves, and eventually I think they reached an agreement.  
“Consigliere,” someone said, “do what you must.”  
“Brilliant!” he said.  
For a long time, he paced back and forth in the hallway. While he did that, I learned what the bishops were deciding.  
“We will give the Consigliere a chance to do what he feels is best to do with the dragons, but only if he tells us what he is doing. If he does not tell us what he is planning, or he doesn’t come up with a plan, we shall send our soldiers against the dragons, perhaps to hold them off until we can build a cage or decide how to contain them.”  
“But the soldiers will all die!” I said.  
“That is a risk we must take.”  
The Doctor came back in the room then, and he looked really pleased with himself.  
“Well, Consigliere,” I said, “what have you decided?”  
“I need lots of copper, lots of water, lots of soft iron, some lime, and a match.”  
“What?”  
“I’m going to be doing some repairs on- well, I need to fix something in order to do anything about the dragons. I have a plan.”  
“Not good enough.”  
“BUT I’M THE POPE AND I SHOULD SAY WHETHER IT’S GOOD ENOUGH!”  
“Your Holiness, it simply isn’t! We appreciate your loyalty to this... gentleman, but we must do something concrete.”  
I ended the meeting and went to talk to the Doctor.  
“I don’t need them anyway,” he said. “I have a plan.”


	7. So Help Me This Won't Turn Into Game Of Thrones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur attempts to summarize the last six chapters. Not everybody lives.

So, according to my Being Understood course, I should Go Back Over The Events From Last Time. Okay. Here we go.  
I gave a messenger my apple that I was tossing and then he had my apple and then I went to talk to the Doctor and then some dragons attacked us and we went into the BRILLIANT SECRET TUNNEL and we had a meeting in the BRILLIANT SECRET TUNNEL and then a dragon dug into the BRILLIANT SECRET TUNNEL so it wasn’t brilliant or secret or even a tunnel any more and then the bishops told the Doctor that he could go and figure something out and so he did and he needed some science things and the bishops decided no, that wasn’t good enough, so they decided to send the Swiss Guard out against the dragons even though we all knew they were going to die, but the Doctor had a plan and that’s what happened last time.  
So here’s what happened this time, only not quite as fast as how I explained what happened last time.  
The dragons were still attacking the palace (which was MY HOUSE, and dragons trying to eat MY HOUSE was NOT BRILLIANT). I went down to see the Swiss Guard off before they all, you know, died. I went down and told them this:  
“I know it’s not that brilliant to go out and fight dragons that are going to kill you all and make everything really unpleasant, but it’s really great that you’re going to do this for us, and I’ll be sure to honor you when you’re dead. Because it’s really important, this dragon fighting, and you are all really brilliant for being so willing to go out and fight them. Okay, good luck, except not really, because you’re all pretty much certainly going to- I mean, good luck! You’re brilliant! Goodbye and thank you for flying- um… fighting the dragons!”  
Some of the Swiss Guard grumbled at me, but some of them clapped and it was really brilliant. Some of them shouted something that sounded like “Hail, Arthur, we who are about to die salute you!” That was brilliant. But it was sad. But also still brilliant. They left, and I went back into the palace that the dragons were still eating and setting on fire. Now I was getting worried, though, because if I die 500 years before I was born, then when I’m born, am I alive and just go back to the past to die or am I just not born at all, or what happens? Is there an Arthur Shappey on Gerti and is it me or is it a different me or is it someone else entirely not me and I got so confused I forgot who and where I was. I was reminded where I was when there was suddenly fire coming down the corridor at me and I remembered that I was in the Pope’s house with some dragons.  
Remembering that I was Pope happened when one of the bishops ran up to me and said “I hope, Your Holiness, that you will ignore the word of your villainous false friend, and take the advice of worthier allies. We in the College of Bishops live to serve you, Your Holiness. Do not cast us aside when we need you most, and you similarly need us. Appoint someone else as your Vicar General. You may see a change in the-”  
“BUT THERE ARE DRAGONS! BIG, FIRE-BREATHING DRAGONS AND HE PROMISED HE WOULD FIX THAT! AND PLUS, ALSO, HE, THAT PERSON, IS MY FRIEND, AND I WON’T GO BACK AGAINST HIM, because that would be rude.”  
“Your Holiness, while your loyalty to this… man… is appreciated, and much a sign of your excellent qualities and worthiness, it is time to break away from his tyranny and make your rule your own.”  
I knew I had to do something, so I thought of a plan. Even Douglas might be proud of my plan. I was that happy with it. I knew I had to survive the dragons so I would be able to tell everyone about this plan, it was SO BRILLIANT.”  
“You know what,” I said, “I think I will take control! I’m the Pope, and what I say is the law of this little tiny country and also a few other places that aren’t here! I’m going to go and tell the Vicar that he’s FIRED, and that I’M IN CHARGE, not HIM AND HIS STUPID IDEAS.”  
“Oh, no, Your Holiness, please let someone else do it. The Vicar is unworthy of your ministrations.”  
“NO. I’m going to do it. I took a course on Understanding People, so I should do it.”  
“Whatever pleases His Holiness,” said the bishop, and he walked away.  
I went to try to find the Doctor, and I found him in the basement of the palace with the… it’s got that name… Anyway, his time machine that’s huge on the inside. So I went down and said “I told a Bishop that I would fire you, but you’re not actually fired. We’re just pretending you’re fired. Like a word game, except instead of making up book titles or celebrities, you’re making up that you’re no longer the Vicar General of Rome.”  
The Doctor looked really confused for a second, then said, “Ah, yes. Which bishop?”  
“The one with the pointy hat?”  
“Can you be a bit more specific, as there are several that meet that description?”  
“He’s got a beard?”  
“Does he also look like he’s just smelled something unpleasant?”  
“Yeah, that’s the one!”  
“I’ve had my suspicions about him. Today, we’ve proved them right!” He looked really happy about that.  
“Isn’t that bad?”  
“Right. Yes. Sorry. Okay!” he said. “I just need to do a few more things and I should have figured out a way to save the dragons and the Vatican!”  
“Brilliant!”  
So I left the basement because I was also suspicious if I stay in the basement too long, so I went and I watched the Swiss guards fight the dragons.  
I remember that I said that I wanted to see knights, but this wasn’t what I meant. It was really sad that all these Swiss guards were fighting against the dragons when they knew they were going to die and they were all fighting for me, even though I wasn’t even supposed to be there, and some of them didn’t even want to. They reminded me of everyone at home. Mum, and Skip, and Douglas, and everyone- they were all just doing what they had to even though they wanted to do other things. Me, I loved what I did, and I thought it was brilliant. I think that’s a metaphor. (Arthur has actually hit on the very core idea of this universe, named that he is trapped within the most complex, bizarre, and drawn-out metaphor for his life that anyone could possibly conceive. -Ed.)  
I remembered that we had originally had 1000 Swiss guards at the start that we would use to fight the three dragons. It looked like not very many were still fighting. At least 100 though, because the number of guards definitely wouldn’t fit in Gerti, especially not with the dragon.  
SUDDENLY! I heard a sound, and it sounded like the Doctor’s time machine, and suddenly a GREAT ENORMOUS BLUE BOX appeared by the dragons! I ran down to the ground floor to see what was going on! The Doctor was luring the dragons into the enormous blue box with my chicken! I ran in behind the last dragon and the Doctor shut the door and we left.  
The dragons were FURIOUS and scary and I grabbed my chicken and ran down a corridor until the dragons couldn’t get me, and I stayed there until we stopped and the dragons lost interest.  
When the Doctor opened the door again, and the dragons ran out it, we were in a very different place, with some trees, and a river. It looked almost like-  
“Prehistoric Rome,” said the Doctor.  
“Brilliant!” I said. “Why?”  
“Well, when I examined the hole the dragons came through, I noticed trace amounts of residual energy along with the standard stuff that comes through when you’ve got a crack in time. Because of the nuclear research and that sort of thing that’s happening in your time, the dragons were sucked through a crack in time and sent back to Renaissance Italy. But that doesn’t explain where they came from. However, if you remember, your bishops said that the dragons were digging a lot, which isn’t normal dragon behavior. So I had a look around, and I found that there was a cave underneath Rome, where the dragons came from. I had to fix the chameleon circuit so that I could get the dragons inside, but beyond that, I just had to take them to a time when nobody was using Rome.”  
“But that’s FANTASTIC!” I said as the dragons happily dug into the soil.


	8. In Which Resolution Happens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rules of time can get eaten by dragons. I'm writing here.

Let’s recap. I temporarily fixed the chameleon circuit, I took the dragons to prehistoric Rome, and showed Arthur Shappey the greatest wonders of the universe. But we weren’t done, not by a long shot.  
The dragons, as Arthur said, were digging about in the soil, and they were frolicking and not bothering us at all. I imagined that back in Rome, everyone was very happy, and also very confused. I told Arthur not to wander too far away from the TARDIS, because the air was a bit too thin, but he was just walking around in circles. I could hear him keep exclaiming “wow” and “brilliant”, so I must have done something right. After he got bored with the scenery, he asked, “Did you know what was going on the whole time?”  
“Not the whole time, but sometimes if you don’t expect things, and it all works out, it’s even better than expecting them.”  
“That’s brilliant!”  
See, I told you I did something right.  
Something started happening, though, over near the TARDIS. The world started twisting and warping and getting all wibbly-wobbly, and the dragons looked very alarmed, at least as alarmed as dragons can look. Something began to appear through the twisting wibbly-wobbliness. This definitely was not supposed to happen.  
“So there are loads of your time machine?” asked Arthur, transfixed.  
“Not at all,” I said.  
What appeared looked like some kind of passenger ship that had been through heavy modifications. Out of it hopped the cardinal Arthur had mentioned before, the one who always looked as though he’d trodden in something unpleasant.  
“You,” he said. “I should have known you were behind something like this. You wanted to appease the dragons, you appeared out of nowhere, you’ve got a blue box that can hold three dragons inside, and you stole my hat. I thought the Time Lords were all dead.”  
“Not quite. Still me. I’m not dead.”  
“More’s the pity. I want my dragons back.”  
“What are you going to do with the dragons, speaking of them?”  
“They’re mine. What I do with them is my concern.”  
“Where are they from?”  
“They’re from my planet, which is commonly called Blorgon, but that isn’t its name.” He looked really cross when he said “Blorgon”.  
“I always thought that everyone from Blorgon was peaceful?” I asked.  
“We were attacked,” said the Cardinal. “We were attacked by a single alien warrior who brought down our entire civilization. We were so embarrassed that we could not stop being angry, so we all bred dragons. Mine escaped when I crash-landed in Rome around this time.”  
“So how did you get from now to where we were before?”  
“You Time Lords. Always nosing about in others’ private matters. Fine. We developed this spaceship so that it could travel either in time or space, but not both.”  
“Your dragons seem really happy to be not with you,” I said. “Why don’t you let them stay here?”  
“They’re my dragons, and I want them back. It’s no business of yours what I do with them.”  
“We’re the only ones here. Arthur’s not going to tell. Are you, Arthur?”  
Arthur didn’t respond. He was on the other side of the TARDIS ripping pages out of my TARDIS manual and the dragons were taking turns setting the pages on fire.  
“The dragons are bred for war, in case the alien warrior comes back. We need to be prepared.”  
“And you think that these three dragons will matter, when they’re clearly having more fun than they’ve ever had in their lives right here?”  
“They were always odd. They’ll live with being back home.”  
“Right. Well. I’m sure that their performance won’t be very good, seeing as they would be unhappy if they were anywhere other than here, burning up my manual and playing with the Pope.”  
“I want them back. That’s all that matters.”  
“Is it? Or is what matters making a sacrifice for their happiness?”  
“No. I want them back, and that’s all there is.”  
“You know,” I said, “making dragons unhappy is usually not a very smart idea.”  
“I can control them,” said the Cardinal angrily. “I know how to control a dragon. They aren’t very intelligent.”  
“Every species is intelligent in its own way.”  
“Says the only Time Lord in existence. I’m sure you’re the most brilliant thing there is.”  
“Not really. But dragons, they’re quite the work of natural engineering. I would say that they are quite intelligent. They understand the Pope.”  
“Why didn’t they understand the Pope when they were destroying the city, then?”  
“I’m... not quite... sure on that, but- but it doesn’t really matter. Anyway. Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider?”  
“No, you haven’t convinced me that my expensive possessions aren’t worth taking back. War is all they have. Without that, they are nothing.”  
“Oh, they have more than that,” I said.  
“How would you- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”  
Then the dragons ate the Cardinal.  
After all, the dragons had been in the TARDIS, and one of the functions of the TARDIS is translating in your head. Even if you’re a dragon. So the dragons could understand their former owner insulting them and wanting to drag them back to... not Blargon... against their will. (I genuinely do not know what its actual name is, because everyone just calls it Blargon ironically and has forgotten what it’s actually called.)  
Arthur walked over to me.  
“So,” he said. “That man got eaten by dragons.”  
“I’m sorry if you didn’t want to see so much violence. I thought this would be resolved much more peacefully.”  
“No, it’s brilliant!” he said. “It’s like something out of a fairy tale! The evil man got eaten by his own dragons!”  
“Glad to see you aren’t scarred for life after seeing his head bitten off.”  
“No, I’ve seen worse. I once killed a man with a fire extinguisher.”  
“The papacy would have been in very safe hands, then,” I said. With a FIRE EXTINGUISHER?  
“Would have been? I don’t get to be the Pope any more?”  
“Well, you aren’t actually the Pope, and you have an aeroplane to go home to.”  
“They elected me, though. So I’m actually, really, genuinely the Pope.”  
“I... well. I’ll have to sort something out, then.”  
“Good, because I want to be the Pope. I liked being the Pope. Everyone listened to me when I was the Pope. And they did what I said.”  
Well, now I HAD to make Arthur the Pope.  
And I did. I took the TARDIS back to Heathrow a few minutes before I had originally arrived and shooed myself away when I did originally get there (by putting a big tent over where I would appear and filling it with clothes so it looked to me like I’d just appeared in a massive laundry bin) and took the second Arthur to the North Pole to meet a polar bear (dragging him away from that almost made me go back a third time to get yet another Arthur so the second Arthur could spend his days as an arctic explorer), then returned him to Heathrow while the first Arthur stayed with his chicken in my library. I restored Arthur to the papacy, my temporary TARDIS repairs had long since failed and I was back to a small police box rather than a police box the size of a very large building, and the dragons were happy and would live out their days in Prehistoric Rome.  
Oh, and Arthur became Pope Pius II, later to become famous as the pope who scared Dracula into submission.  
Dragons, and Arthur Shappey, are really, really cool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my goodness, I loved doing this. I hope you all had even half as much fun reading it as I did writing it. Now I hope the eternal question of what it would be like if Arthur was a companion is sufficiently answered.
> 
> Maybe not completely, though.  
> We'll see.


End file.
